


Queen of Them All

by Anonymous



Category: Strip Polka - The Andrews Sisters (Song)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Queenie's got dreams.





	Queen of Them All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



Queenie knew she was no Rose Louise Hovick. She'd been to those shows, one professional observing a far more luminary star than she. "Luminary" had been one of the words in the show, enunciated with lascivious clarity (more words Queenie learned at the knee of a nude beauty) by the most famous burlesque dancer in New York as she removed her gloves, peeling them slowly down her pale arms. Her voice sultry and dripping with mocking elegance, she'd pick the pins from her blouse one by one, revealing flawless skin the audience swooned over. Her idol would rhapsodize over the daintiness of her own self-education, showing a shoulder, a knee, and the dark promise of her just-hidden breasts. Queenie had bought herself a ticket to five different shows, taking a long, examining look at the hang of blouse, and the sway of hips with the hint of G-string.

But that had been New York, and Rose Louise's stage name was far more famous than Jenny's ever would be. "Queenie" was easy to remember, more playful than elegant. The sailors liked playful. In her heart she was the queen of the stage every night. In their eyes she had to stay tempting yet approachable.

The Majestic, where Queenie spent her time and made her money, sat on a half-forgotten road down the way from the flophouse where the sailors on shore leave liked to spend their pay. The hotel sign advertised no hanky-panky, though Queenie knew both 'hanky' and 'panky' were regular features. In between the two, the sailors came around the theatre, paid their six bits, and enjoyed the show.

Queenie herself was a fan of the earlier numbers. Sally, whose stage name was Scarlet, told some jokes to warm up the crowd. ("What's a baby? Nine months interest on a small deposit." A riot, even if she swiped the bit from a show she'd seen in Kansas City.) Next on was Kathleen, who knew a little Shakespeare and quoted the dirty parts as she showed off her bum under her skirt. Queenie hadn't even known there were dirty parts in Shakespeare, but she laughed every time Kathleen started talking about tongues in tails. Then Rosita would come out in an outfit all like Romeo, and they'd quote love lines, the boys in the audience swooning as they leaned in to kiss at the end.

Queenie liked the musical numbers, too. She did back row work for two of the numbers, her face under a mask dancing to Sally's left. You didn't get paid if you didn't put in your dancing time with all the rest. Queenie loved dancing, even if her legs were sore after. They practiced four times a week to get the kicks high, but not too high. Give 'em a glimpse, the motto was, but never the full look. A man would pay six bits for three shows a day, four on Saturdays, for a quick, craning look where he hoped to peek under the flashing skirts into the tempting shadows between the dancers' legs. Show him everything, and he'd seen it all, and he wouldn't come back to try his luck again.

It was an art. Queenie had learned from Rose Louise Hovick, and she'd learned more from the dance director at the Majestic. Richard was the sweetest guy she'd ever met, and like most other girls in the show, she'd gone through a sighing crush before it had finally dawned on her that no woman was ever going to make him happy. Richard knew everything there was to know about dancing, or thought he did. Queenie privately thought he could use a few lessons himself but the man did know how to choreograph a good glimpsing kick in the chorus skirts.

After the jokes and the Shakespeare and the dancing, only then did Queenie have her spotlight. She liked polka music, loved the swing and the beat. For the boys in the audience, it was a little taste of life back home in their little towns in Nowhere, USA. Queenie was from Nowhere USA herself, and remembered the big polka band that played at all the holidays and parades.

When the band at the Majestic played for her, Queenie felt special, like she was the star of the parade, twirling and dancing with every eye locked on her. Sometimes she used a baton in her act. The boys really liked that, but Queenie felt it was gauche. (Thank you, Rose Louise.) She'd bare her shoulders and shake her bottom, and she'd unzip the front of her bustier almost past the point of no return, but drawing the length of her baton wand up the inside of one long leg before dragging it between the swell of her breasts all the way to kiss the metal tip, well, that might bring a lot of whistles and cheers, but it was crude. She did get an extra dollar a night when she brought the baton out, though.

Queenie wasn't crude. She was the queen of the stage, extending one leg out before spinning away in a splash of sequins. The sailors in their seats might shout "Take it off!" but to her, they were praising her name to the stars as the polka played behind her in hrump-pum-pum time.

The girls all got paid at the end of every night. Some of the younger, newer girls put on their more modest skirts and blouses, took their money, and went to spend it in another gin joint closer to the pier. A few had their eyes on a sailor of their own. Kathleen preferred an installment plan, and made a point of having a sailor of her own on every ship that wandered into port, waving each beau off when he shipped out again. Rosita had no use for sailors. She and Sally took their money and went back to the tiny apartment they shared, and Rosita would get in a lot more practice for tomorrow's show when she came back to kiss Kathleen all over again.

And Queenie? She wasn't one for sailors, though she'd let one of them take her out now and then. Sailors were as fickle as the tide, or so Richard the dance director said, and Queenie agreed. If she was ever to marry, she'd want a solid farmer, dirt under his nails and all. She could hang up her sequins, hang up her name, and be plain old Jenny, and that plan suited her just fine. Queenie didn't trust banks, not after what had happened, but she owned a safe in her own tiny apartment. What didn't go to rent and food, she kept locked away. There was a farm in her dreams, one a few miles down the road from where the polka band played on the green every Fourth of July. Some folks might not like taking money passed over by sweaty-palmed young men on shore leave, but not everyone was picky about where the mortgage came from.

Seventy-three more days, said the little book she kept in her safe with a pencil marking down her earnings, and that was without the baton. Seventy-three more nights of being the queen of them all under the spotlight on her stage. Queenie counted down her shows, and she practiced her kicks, and she bought a dictionary to learn a couple of long words to use in her act. Rose Louise had a few good ideas. "Coquettish" was good. "Languorous" sounded sexy in the right mouth. "Ribald" was perfect for shooing Shakespeare and company off the stage.

Her favorite word of all, though, rolled off her tongue to herself every night as the manager counted out her pay and brought her one day closer to freedom. Queenie squeezed her money in her hand, and she rolling the word "Emolument" around in her mouth like a luxury and a promise to herself.


End file.
